First-year engineering student, Ethan Massie photographed in front of the Thorvaldson building at the University of Saskatchewan on October 29th, 2021. Aleshba Naseer/Photo Editor

During my uncle’s first engineering lecture he was told by his professor,  “Look to your left. Now look to your right. Of these three, two will either drop out or fail.” However, during my first engineering lecture, my professor said, “Look to your left. Look to your right. This is your team and your community. These are the people you will need to rely on to succeed.” 

This fall, the College of Engineering introduced RE-ENGINEERED, its completely redesigned first-year program, and my uncle’s story illustrates just how different things are now.

I think the main shift is a change from the traditional grading system to a competency-based learning system focused on assignments and learning outcomes rather than tests and grades. 

In this new learning system, if you receive a higher grade on a later assignment, it will replace the past grade for that outcome. Or if you receive a lower grade for a later assignment, the two assignment grades will be averaged out. 

Since outcomes are only tested once or twice, if a student is insufficient in one of the required outcomes they can fail the course. I’ll admit, this does put stress on students if they struggle with an outcome. However, I think this grading system does  help students pass their courses even if they struggle earlier in their first year.

The course load is heavy — I’m taking 11 courses, most with labs, this term — especially because some of the courses only last three weeks. I still have to face something similar to finals in the last week of the semester where I write module tests for physics, biology, chemistry and geology. 

This does worry me because some of the courses I have comprehensive tests for ended as early as September. Having such a long break between learning the content in a class and being tested makes it difficult to retain the information.

However, I believe that RE-ENGINEERED is designed so that students will have all the knowledge for topics in future classes to make sense. This is a great idea and works well because it has students learn a concept and practice it through application in many classes. 

Despite the inherent stress that comes with being in the first-year engineering program, I’ve found that there are good support systems in place for anyone struggling, including daily help sessions run by TAs. 

One of the main focuses of the new program is developing a sense of community between first-year engineering students so they have a support system outside of TAs and professors. 

For example, through help sessions, I have managed to create a network of fellow first-year students for help with assignments or just to vent about school-related stresses. The RE-ENGINEERED program has allowed me to make some of the closest friends I have at university.

Another strong pillar of the program, I believe, are the excellent professors teaching first-year courses, who want to pass on their knowledge to the next generations of engineers. Although the information in classes is given at an extremely fast pace, I feel that the professors are trying their best to understand how students learn best and change the program to fit students’ learning styles. 

Lastly, RE-ENGINEERED also tries to stress the importance of having a balanced life to prevent students burning out. For example, in one of my classes, a mental health nurse walked us through how to reach out for the university counselling services f and taught us coping strategies we could use if the course was causing us stress. 

We also learned small activities students can do to relieve stress when assignments and classes are too much. Because of this lecture, I sought out and found activities around campus, like the intramural leagues, to relieve stress and  focus on something other than school for awhile. 

Despite there being some growing pains, I think RE-ENGINEERED is a great program that gives me the tools I need to succeed as a student and as a future engineer. 

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This op-ed was written by a University of Saskatchewan undergraduate student and reflects the views and opinions of the writer. If you would like to write a reply, please email opinions@thesheaf.com. Ethan is a first-year engineering student. 

Photo: Aleshba Naseer | Photo Editor